


Pumpkin Spice

by misbehavingvigilante



Series: Tales Inspired by the Discord Year 1 [27]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Porn, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Tony Stark-centric, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 19:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20856758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavingvigilante/pseuds/misbehavingvigilante
Summary: Here he was a witch playing at human deceiving a really nice person who apparently saw something in him but then Steve just made it easier to breathe around him.





	Pumpkin Spice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Orange_Coyote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orange_Coyote/gifts).

> For Space, for being especially encouraging while I lost my mind over in discord over this fic, and to everyone else who helped!
> 
> So disclaimer the bulk of this? written in 24 hours, the entire thing probably plotted and edited in 48 hours so I'm sure it is rough in some areas. Do I plan on going back in and making edits? Maybe, I don't know. We'll have see. 
> 
> I think that's all the tags, but if I missed any let me know. This is 'Trouble with The Law' for the mcu stony h/c bingo discord and also Halloweentown & witches fusion for the Marvel Spookytober Prompts!

“You were seen by a human.”

“Oh, come on…” Tony stuck his hands into his pockets, not taking this seriously as he had been called in several times into SHIELD for having an magical exposure incident in the mundane world. SHIELD saw to it to oversee the delicate balance between Halloweentown, their world, and the mundane world, the world of humans. At one point, long ago, the two had been combined, but like a bad divorce, they were just never able to work out their differences and being reunited again.

So it lead to a lot of laws, a lot of unnecessary laws if you asked Tony because humans were pretty resourceful bunch themselves. “You know how much their technology has advanced these days. Why would anyone think witches are real?”

“Something about how a certain Stark witch seems to think he can do whatever he wants in the mundane and makes life difficult for all of us in Halloweentown!” Fury’s voice rose and he sat up out of his expensive black leather chair, very much enhanced to make sure it never lost its comfort no doubt for the long days and nights it took to be the head of SHIELD. And didn’t bounce against the wall when he inevitably drew up from anger and thus wouldn’t slam into the wall and get damaged even if ordinarily the force and trajectory alone would have taken care of that.

“We’re the ones that have to clean up your messes. Do you know how much paperwork we have because of you? That we have certain forms just because of you?”

“Well-“

“You clean up your mess this time, Stark! You’re a menace. I won’t let you endanger an entire world because you can’t be bothered.”

Tony doesn’t even get to ask what Fury means by that. The man isn’t happy that much is sure, but Tony’s honestly not sure he’s ever seen Fury happy before. Aside from maybe that time he saw Fury with an orange cat and he looked marginally less constipated that normal, dare he say, relaxed, but then his memory gets a little fuzzy after that so Tony was never quite sure if he imagined it or not.

Something courses through his body like a current of electricity in it’s course but not in how it feels, it feels cold and poison-like, and the feel of foreign magic has him on edge as it is a violation. It brings him unceremoniously to the ground before he can even think to combat it.

Fury is a lot older than him, the older a witch, the more dangerous they are tends to be how it goes. It seems like he’s always been at the head of SHIELD, and SHIELD has been around for over a millennia.

“Since for once, you seem not capable of speech, let me explain.” Fury walks over to him, apparently not content to have this conversation behind his desk. Tony only vaguely can see the curls of cloak and his shoes from his position down here on the ground, it hurts too much to even look up, his breath feels shallow and like he can’t break in all the way. His skin feels raised and like there’s something running across the surface of it like a rash. 

He doesn’t like this, whatever this is, “I will remove the curse if and only if you meet my conditions which is for once, considering something other than yourself. Go to the mundane world, act as SHIELD agent, and fix the shit that irresponsible people like you keep breaking. You must do this and not reveal your identity to anyone else. If you do, then say goodbye to your magic.”

Tony felt his blood chill, he wasn’t sure if that was part of the curse, or his magic finally returning to him after the initial shock of the invasion wore off. He breathe out, and he could see his breathe in the air as if the temperature had dropped below freezing. But the inside of the office hadn’t changed but the inside of his body typically warm, always warm felt cold and sluggish, like a winter’s frost had set in.

Curse or shock, he didn’t know but he found the energy to rise to his feet and make his case. “You can’t do that!”

“I can and I will.” Fury’s one good eye landed on him. “Go ahead and search our laws, you will find that I have no only the legal right but authority to subject yourself to such punishment.”

~

It isn’t that Tony is bad at concealing himself that lead to this. If anything, Tony is good at wrapping glamours around himself and letting people see him only as he wants them to see. Sometimes that is not at all, like in that popular mundane movie with the cloak of invisibility. Not that he needs a specific set of clothing to hide, but admittedly imbuing clothes with sigils and wards can be a shortcut. They need to be refreshed every so often so they don’t lose their strength but it ensures you don’t need a constant current to reach whatever goal your magic has, at least.

So hiding in the mundane world was never quite the problem… the problem was more, well, one of poor impulse control. When he wanted something, he tended to want it now, and didn’t always think about if it was the best place for it.

His magic was instinctual sometimes, acting without his conscious thought, and instead just responding to what he felt before he had time to process that. He’d argued that having such a grasp should mean he should have some additional leeway.

But then, he had argued that several times before.

It wasn’t a surprise that SHIELD got tired of his shit, or really that they even cursed him. Not that SHIELD was populated by witches alone, no, there were several kind of species, and SHIELD had almost one of all of them.

Fury just so happened to be a witch and was at the head of the organization and witches, often, but not always were the cause of exposure.

Emotions got high and things blew up sometimes… it wasn’t necessarily Tony’s fault.

Gas mains blew, and weird shit happened in the mundane world without it having anything to do with magic, or other creatures. Life was just weird like that.

But again, he hadn’t really been as careful as he should have been. To his knowledge, no one had been hurt, maybe clipped sometimes by the stray tendrils of magic, or some ill effects of memory manipulation, but never killed.

If he had killed someone accidentally, SHIELD would have thrown the book at him by now.

Some part of his leniency also probably came down to the fact his magic had found a home in fire magic and fire was chaotic. Having chaotic leanings changing things in the magical world, it made control harder to grasp, and sometimes control every little odd thing really only lead to something worse.

You couldn’t not use magic when you, yourself were magic.

The magical buildup would just hurt you and others.

Still, it wasn’t as if some degree of control was entirely out of the question, Tony had been relying on several things to just lead all his slip ups and bad behavior be swept under the rug.

So making a witch of chaos act as a de facto SHIELD agent? Tony wasn’t sure how popular that would be amongst the chain of command, but then again SHIELD was known for thinking up creative punishments.

The curse was still there, Tony could feel it in his chest, and he wouldn’t quite breathe in all the way, the weight of something heavy and leaden in his chest encroaching on his lung capacity. Not in actuality, of course, he could get one of those x-rays the humans did, and nothing would show up. But Fury had always been a witch of stealth, his hand was almost always unseen, unless he wanted it to be seen. Which is why the road rash was an interesting choice, Tony didn’t know what to make of it, but it spread like insects itching crawling against his skin, with dark lines spreading in a geometrically way.

It would almost be ornate, if it couldn’t rip his magic out of him. 

Still, it didn’t mean Tony had to be happy about this though he understood why this had happened, and why it was his fault. The idea of losing his magic was a frightening one. It had been there with him since he had been born, the idea of losing it, of someone ripping it out of him, that it would be lost forever to him?

It was a very solemn, scary thought.

Mostly because it had every potential to become his reality.

He could adapt, he could survive without it, but he just didn’t want to. He preferred his own world rather than the mundane world. To lose his magic, would be to lose his link to that world as well as the memories would just be too much for him to bear if he stayed there.

Tony pushed the thought aside feeling his heart racing and his breath getting short, a telltale since of his anxiety speaking so he had to switch tactics, it wasn’t helpful. It wasn’t helpful right now, when he needed to figure out what to do, and how to handle what was in front of him.

Tony had a place on standby already, it just made sense to keep something in the mundane world when he made multiple trips, granted they dealt in a different currency than Halloweentown but there was an exchange rate. Tony had a rather successful business and didn’t shy away from trying new things so it meant he didn’t particularly want for money.

If he failed this though, then he might have a problem with money and would have to find a kind of mundane job. Tony shuddered at the thought, unconsciously his magic curled around him in ribbons of gold and red to comfort him.

“It’s a good thing I’m at home… “ Tony said to no one, because that outburst would have cost him exposure and he hadn’t even done a single job yet. Ironically, Fury had sent him to deal with the exposure incident of the human he’d been responsible for.

A little memory spell would work wonders, but Tony hadn’t exactly been great at them. He was better at simply charming people into giving what he wanted. So he would have to figure out where the person was, and think of a plausible excuse.

Of all places, it had happened in the library, he’d ben devouring knowledge and the books had floated in the air when he claimed a quiet corner so he could more easily switch from side to side. Some things just weren’t online though the internet could be a bastion of knowledge, sometimes it was easier to go for something solid and structured with the knowledge it was likely at least accurate.

That and Tony’s magic couldn’t really work on something a massive as the web, he could check a book to get an idea of how true or not it was, but he couldn’t really touch a computer and know suddenly with all the webs the internet went to what was and wasn’t.

Or well, he could, but he preferred to do that with his own computer back at his magical home in Halloweentown, not in public, not when he could be barged in on and someone likely call an ambulance when his eyes inevitably rolled to the back of his head and he became completely unresponsive.

Lost in the digital space.

It was a good excuse, but Tony didn’t like the moments after when he came back to himself and struggle to reorient himself to the world. He wouldn’t be able to charm an answer or even teleport for a few minutes after that.

So he needed to go back to the library, and he knew that one didn’t have any surveillance cameras to worry about, even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but then the cloud meant you had to track down every copy and every storage of it, too. It was a mess.

So he’d go to the library, retrace the steps and then find the person from then. Tony was pretty sure SHIELD already knew who, but this was likely a test designed to punish him.

Then again, he was being punished regardless, but Tony didn’t put it past them to make sure he operated on the least about of information available to set himself up for failure. SHIELD wasn’t exactly his biggest fan, his father’s maybe, but not him, never him.

Tony put a glamour of himself ensuring that nothing would give away his magical heritage.

Other creatures made their home here, or like him just were in transient, sometimes here and sometimes not, but with an understandable air of subtlety. Or well, at least that’s how it was supposed to go.

The nights were coming in early, a clear nod to the change of the season, the air was getting colder and the leaves were already changing. Fall looked beautiful in both worlds, even if Halloweentown tended to stay in the fall season year round, never too hot, and never too cold, sometimes snow, but mainly rain and lingering summer storms.

That and the mundane world had pumpkin spiced lattes, something in which Tony had a weakness for but he learnt the hard way that libraries didn’t allow food or drink in one particularly notable circumstances when an owl explained it to him and then flew off to assume a more human shape as to not draw attention.

The cold air of the library ac running was always nice, something about mundane libraries was nice maybe it was something to do with the lack of books that could eat you. In Halloweentown, well, books could eat you, teleport you, explode, and another myriad of things so one had to tread with caution.

Not so the case here, Tony looked around wondering if he’s get lucky enough that the patron would just be here and not have him hunt after him but sadly that didn’t seem to be the case. With things being rather muted due to the understanding that the library needed to be quiet, he went back to the area that had led to the exposure to begin with.

It was the sectioned off reference books, in one of the corners of the room far from the computer or children’s section since inevitably those areas tended to be a bit louder and here of course, would probably be people studying for something serious and really need the quiet sanctuary the library offered.

Tony brushed his hands against one of the books cases where he’d heard the exclamation and the drop of books. There were many echoes of several people, people leaning against it for support, people just running their hands against the edges of the book cases for the texture, or in some noted incidents people making out against it.

“Well, that’s not what I’m looking for.” Tony muttered, he should have known this section of the library would have residual horny energies.

Eventually he found what he was looking for, a man with dark hair and green eyes that had dropped a few children’s books in his surprise and more importantly, it gave him an energy signature to follow through the streets of New York. 

Following the energy signature was far easier to do with a werewolf, or really any creature that had an increased sense of smell. Witches did not, but they were very resourceful with all the magic in their hands to be wielded different ways.

It lead him to a nearby park, and Tony saw the person that had caught him, but paused immediately when it was obvious he was with his child. Well, that changed things. Tony had known the man had a kid, but didn’t like the idea of doing anything when children were around.

For one, kids were rather willingly to believe in magic, so with the belief already there, it didn’t budge nearly as much to be told, no it wasn’t magic, it was something else entirely, and if the kid had been told about what had happened, then that would make it harder to change.

Well, he couldn’t exactly do anything too weird in a public park of all places, with parents and children abound which meant any ounce of oddity would get the cops called on him.

Not that SHIELD didn’t have some mundane cops on roll, but the least he involved them the better. Tony decided, it would just be best to wait out until the man was alone and then do something about it. It seemed the most careful option, thus the one SHIELD would improve of the most, hopefully.

Regardless, he deserved a latte, so he was going to go get one. Apps nowadays let you call ahead your order meaning he wouldn’t have to wait in line for a long time or wait for his order to be ready but could just walk in and out and be done with it.

Which is exactly what Tony did as he took in the city with a pumpkin spice latte with no destination in mind exactly. The only case he’d been given so far was the one that he’d had thus far titled Ant, thanks to the fact man kept being surrounded by people thus hard to approach like with ants, when there was one, there tended to be many.

Likely that had been done intentionally, to limit the amount of damage he could cause.

Tony was walking down the street looking ahead instead of to the sides, so he nearly missed the mural. A work in process of some sort of huge project that had several colors and blobs on it so far, but Tony couldn’t quite make out what exactly it was meant to be. Was it abstract? So its meaning was lost on him? Or just something that hadn’t yet come together but would have a visual coherency?

Stop and starting for a moment lead him to take in the artist behind it, or what he assumed was the artist at least. There was a steel ladder given additional reach for the high walls to paint on with a man that appeared tall, taller than Tony at least, and blond hair and a slight darker thick beard, and what seemed to be blue eyes from a distance. He hadn’t seem to notice Tony yet, or if he had he made no note of it.

Tony sipped from his latte again, the man was attractive, but that really was a bad idea given the only reason he was here long term was SHIELD.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to look, and in hindsight, it was a good thing he was given he overlooked one of the paint cans and noticed a problem. It appeared that the handle to the lid was loose and that if it was picked up, it would likely splat and send paint all over the cement instead. Paint seemed like the sort of thing that could get expensive so, Tony briefly looked around. The good thing about New York was that often people minded their business and didn’t pay too much attention to you so with a thought, his magic curled around the can and fixed the loose handle so it wouldn’t break when it was touched.

The fact that it was then when the artist looked over and at him, had Tony’s heartbeat increasing. Had he noticed? Was he already found out just because he hadn’t wanted to make someone’s life more difficult? Attraction level aside, Tony would have done something because even if he didn’t know what mural was yet, it still looked pretty and like it had been a lot of work done.

“Um…” Tony said under his breath, with the traffic around them, it probably wasn’t heard but the direct eye contact thing did have uneasy, sprinting away make him look guilty, even if he had been seen, he could charm this person.

Tony watched was the man stepped down from the ladder and towards him with a smile. That put Tony at ease, and also it was a nice smile, he made a note if they met again to try to make the man smile again.

“Hi, I noticed you were looking.”

“Uh, yep, I was… couldn’t figure out what it was meant to be. Sorry if that’s offensive.” Tony muttered, fast and still sorta nervous.

“I haven’t gotten much work in, so don’t worry about it.” The man shrugged, apparently easy going by the looks of it. “Are you doing okay though? You seem nervous. Did you have too much caffeine?”

Tony blinked, but then remembered the pumpkin spiced latte, it probably was one of the best smelling things around thus it stood out amongst everything else. Even when they were standing a few feet apart that is.

“I’m just…” How did he explain to a human he was afraid of having his magic taken away from him with exposure? What was an analogy that worked here? “Not sure exactly what I’ll be able to see next and not. I did something that was stupid in hindsight and now I’m in… community service you could say, not quite sure if that’s going to be enough or if it’s just going to be a more permanent punishment, you know?”

The blond blinked but then it seemed the analogy worked. That was how the penal system worked here too, wasn’t it? Sometimes community service was enough and sometimes not? His run-ins with the law hadn’t really been in the mundane world. “Ah, I see. That is a lot on your mind. How much time until you know for sure?”

“Not sure. Kinda up in the air, you know?” Maybe literally, Tony had heard the rumors of how magic got ripped out of body, there was several ways but the body usually was always levitated dramatically until you drop to the floor and it was gone for good. “Probably a few weeks, can’t imagine it would be more than that. Long enough to get to know my character, but not so long that they’ll let me think I got off the hook.”

“Right. That sounds rough. I’m sorry, I kinda asked without even realizing how personal that was…”

Tony tilted his head, that didn’t make any sense. “No, I brought it up, it’s fine. Do you think your mural will be done before my final judgement?”

“I think it needs another month, at least. Best not to rush art.” The man extended his hand, and it took a long moment for Tony to understand what he wanted, it had been a while since he shook hands with anyone. “I’m Steve.”

“Tony.” He offered, noting that Steve had a firm grip but that his hands were soft and free from any callouses which was kinda odd for a street artist, or maybe that was just him. Tony didn’t actually know a lot about artists. Maybe that was normal, maybe callouses only made it harder to art.

“I’ll probably be around here most days, if it doesn’t rain at least.”

“Yeah, I’d guess paint and rain wouldn’t mix.”

“Well, some paints are waterproof, you can even use them underwater. But waterproof paints that you use on land, tend to need to be able to dry before those properties kick in.”

“Is that right?” Tony raised an eyebrow, he hadn’t known about that. “That’s interesting. So you just paint for a living?”

“Among some other things. I wasn’t really happy at my last job.”

“Ah, sorry to hear that. Are you your own boss now?”

“In a way, I guess.”

As the silence stretched on, it had Tony on edge again, things seemed fine, but he didn’t exactly want to leave but staying in that silence meant awkwardness. “Your skin seems rather fair, how do you deal with the sun?”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Sunscreen is a thing, you know.”

“I guess, I wouldn’t know, I don’t burn, I just tan.”

“That’s not really good for you.”

“Hasn’t killed me yet.”

“You can always take better care of yourself.” Steve imparted as if this was something important, or something he too had struggled with himself.

Well, said like that, Tony just felt bad. “I’ll look into it, okay? I don’t want to take up your entire day, so…”

“I can paint and talk at the same time. I wouldn’t mind the company, if you wanted to swing by again. You sm-“ Steve cleared his throat. “Sorry about that, got something caught in my throat. Seem nice.”

“Ah, thanks.” Tony smiled without thinking about it. “Not the flu, I hope? It spreads around this time doesn’t it?”

“Luckily, I don’t really get sick.” Tony didn’t really get sick either, so he could relate, but then Steve added. “I do my part for herd immunity though.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Nah, it’s just the decent thing to do. Shouldn’t get a reward for just being decent. I don’t want to keep you, so you can get on with your day. Good luck with the community service, glad that you got off with that rather than just sent to jail. Doesn’t really seem to rehabilitate people.”

“Yeah…” Tony agreed, not exactly knowing how true that was or not. He had a few gaps in the mundane world when things didn’t interest him. Mainly the internet was his favorite, and how technology progressed. “See you around, Steve.”

Tony walked off, feeling at least a little better at his curse if it meant he at least got to meet Steve because of it.

~

Naturally, the next day it rained meaning no art thus no Steve. Tony couldn’t really track Steve given the transient nature of streets, it would be a difficult find if he could pull it off along the energy imprints of everyone else there and how it just sorta muddled into one thing. Not like libraries or places where the experience was more curated.

Tony rolled over and decided to go back to bed. It was silly to pin his hopes on one person he had meet in the span of a few minutes, but in light of the curse, how everything was just one step from going wrong, he felt like he had the right to be dramatic.

Or at least, the right to wallow living well there was a large knife over his head, just ready and willing to cut out his magic.

The foreign weight in his chest felt heavier at that thought.

Tony didn’t really know how it would happen, was the curse strong enough to cut it out of him entirely without Fury’s input, even in this world? Or would it just act as a siren and alert Fury, and then bring him here to finish it off?

If the latter was the case, maybe he could run, but he wasn’t sure if he could really outrun SHIELD forever.

How did one ward themselves against a whole host of supernatural creatures?

At least, how did one do it forever?

Tony pushed the thoughts out of his head, his tendrils of magic embracing him again until it was nothing but a weighted blanket against a wave of despair.

He didn’t get out of bed the rest of the day.

~

It was partly cloudy, the clouds hadn’t let up entirely but it wasn’t raining anymore meaning he needed to get back to work and figure out his human problem. Steve had to come second because Tony knew himself and he wouldn’t see Steve and then do the thing in that order.

He memorized the energy signature by now and went about pinging it.

Yesterday he had walked a lot throughout the streets of New York, it would act a virtual map that his brain could bring about and then add in with the memory of the energy signature should superimpose the image and bring about where they were and where they went.

Hopefully he could take a cab this time around, he had magicked away the soreness but that was something he only do so many times before his body would protest against, mostly because he wasn’t too great at healing. Great about not accidentally dying, but not so good about preventing death from preventable things.

Tony hailed a cab and messed around with his phone. He wasn’t really paying attention just giving the illusion of such so that he could have an excuse to tell someone to change direction rather than just look like a strange person asking suddenly.

Tony supposed it did happen to people with bad memories but looking as normal and as human as possible was the goal.

He had almost left the house without his glamour before he had membered and had chided himself harshly for such a thing. God, he was stupid, very stupid, all of this could have been avoided in the first place but of course he had to believe that consequences didn’t happen to him, that he could sweet talk his way out of everything.

Tony had to ask to change directions three times before he asked to let out. He left more than the needed fare for the cab driver in case he happened to run into them again, if he paid nicely, then eccentrics would be over looked.

He missed Happy, his skeleton driver back in Halloweentown, but this was his punishment alone, so he couldn’t really ask any of his friends to bear it with him.

Tony went through a side street feeling the signal stronger now, until he finally saw the man again.

“You!” he said, in exclamation. “You were the one who levitated the books.”

“Yes, that was me.” Tony didn’t deny it, hoping by admitting it that it would act as a way to let the man lower his guard. “I’m a magician, you see. The library and I have something of an understanding about my tricks.”

“You were practicing in a library?”

“It’s a quiet place.” Tony countered, threading suggestion into his voice. “I mean, you don’t really believe people can levitate books without some sort of trick going on, do you?”

“No… I guess not. But you’re a magician! So am I!”

Tony blinked, that was not something he had seen coming. “Are you now? What a small world.”

A belief in stage magic was pliable, but it made Tony nervous because an interest in magic right now was bad. It could mean the charm wouldn’t take if the belief was peppered with the idea it could actually be something other than just stage magic, or maybe it meant the witches in this world who practiced their own kinds of magic. God, Tony didn’t know.

“Yes. Can you teach me to be better? My daughter’s birthday is coming up and I really want to do something special for her.”

The man seemed really earnest and it was touching to see a parent’s love so clear and obvious.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll make some time. We can do it now if that’s best for you, or whenever. How soon is it?”

“Ah, it’s in July, actually.”

Tony blinked, that meant it was closer to having happened rather than being that close, but still, it was touching. “Yeah, I guess it never hurts to start early.”

“So can you teach me to do the levitating books tricks?”

“Yeah, sure…” Maybe that would be the best way to handle this situation because Tony couldn’t really say with certainty that the case was fully done yet. There was that thread of uncertainty, of the sense of something being amiss not quite free from the man yet.

~

Scott was really a doting parent, but his attitude was infectious to a degree. It cheered Tony up and elevated his mood from yesterday at least. He felt slightly bad about only agreeing to cover his own ass, but then well, was it really a bad thing to teach someone how to be a better at stage magic if it made them and their daughter happy?

Tony didn’t think so. Then again, he realized part of the reason he might have agreed had been his own problems with his father, there had always been that distance there and that uncertainty about how much his own father actually cared about him.

In some stretched version of reality to not do so would be to fail that child and to damage a parental relationship and Tony didn’t want that.

In the end, a few hours passed and the sun came more and more out from the clouds, until it wasn’t even obvious it had been cloudy this morning. Or afternoon, it was afternoon when he woke up wasn’t it?

Tony didn’t remember just that by the time he got to see Steve again it was near sunset.

Steve looked like he was getting ready to leave by the looks of things.

“Ah, you’re a dawn to dusk type?” Tony asked.

“Early riser.” Steve admitted. “Good for art.”

“I thought that was good for baking.”

“Well, good for my art, at least. You seem like you feel better.”

“Yeah.” Tony admitted. “Yeah, I do.”

~

Things are… it feels premature to call it calm, but Tony starts to relax a bit more, starts not to fear the loss of his magic if he feels because it feels like a tangible goal, like this is something he can, sure it’s taking more than he would like but what else can he do but deal with it?

He sees Steve just about every day, talks with him about his paintings and about just what’s going on when you’re painting on the streets, in front of an audience like that.

Steve says he doesn’t mind, that it gives him a good rapport with his community, sometimes the kids will want to help, and even if it’s not perfect that Steve tries to always incorporate their drawings into somehow so that they’re not discouraged. He never calls their additions a mistake, and senses that perhaps Steve might have kids of his own, or perhaps he’d just wanted them one day.

Or maybe he’s just one of those people who likes kids but would never want their own kids and takes care of their community’s children because it takes a village as the saying goes.

He talks to the elderly, who sometimes speaks to him out of loneliness or to talk about how things used to be in neighborhood before Steve had joined.

Teenagers have the most varieties of possible ways to act, some don’t see the point, some want to talk to Steve since he never belittles them like some adults do, or some like to talk about art techniques and when it seems a genuine interest Steve guides them to places they can learn to free or no cost.

Adults pass by without asking usually too assumed by their own lives, but sometimes they take just a moment to stop and breathe and take in the scenery and Steve tells him that in itself is enough to make someone stop and watch to see his painting if only for a moment.

Basically, what Tony learns is that Steve is kind, and he is well-liked among his community which makes sense than that his artwork is actually supposed to be a huge mural of all the people around, something seasonal, something only for a short amount of time in itself it seems.

It seems like a lot of work but Tony gets why he does it.

Tony talks about himself sometimes, but finds he rather just listen to Steve or about small talks. They don’t hover back to his community service, and Tony is sure Steve knows he just doesn’t want to talk about it.

Steve is solace, and Tony feels calm around him.

And very grounded the few times when Steve touches him, as if for once in his life, the impulsive need to do things, to not care about things, just fade away and he feels sated.

He chalks it up to being touch starved and being way too obsessed with someone he hasn’t known very long.

Steve is just nice.

He’s like this to everyone, there’s no pint in taking it as anything other than that.

He tells himself, but he doesn’t quite listen either, with the embers of hopes being to flickering.

~

Tony groaned when three was a knock on the door, he had just gotten to sleep maybe two hours ago, dawn had just happened and the sun wasn’t too bright yet meaning it was still morning. Regardless of how he ignored the knock, it kept coming.

Tony groaned through the pillow covering his ears and pushed a suggestion outside of his place to deter whoever it was.

He didn’t get a response.

He did however remember something important, no one mundane should be able to find his place, ergo it was supernatural company to which he had just sent a suggestion out. The knock came again, and Tony gritted his teeth.

This couldn’t be one of Fury’s spies come it?

“Come in.” Tony muttered, from beneath the pillow but it seemed permission enough before then the door was opened and he had company.

“Mr. Stark.”

Tony cussed internally, thankfully because he recognized that voice. Sitting up in the bed and looking at unimpressed Coulson. Tony wondered what went on in SHIELD that seemed to have people only ever capable of having one expression. If Fury was constipated, then Coulson was unimpressed, to say nothing of the redhead he had run into one, thrumming with nonchalance, but also giving Tony a very bad vibe with the amount of danger radiating off of them.

“Coulson, I see you haven’t been able to get around the permissions.”

“A limitation of my species, I’m afraid.” He didn’t really sound bothered. “You, on the other hand, I would consider the greater hindrance. I feel as if I’m the one being punished when I am told to brief you on a case when you’re still struggling with the ant.”

“Ah, yes, the spy has spies, I guess you’ve been watching me. You don’t watch me in the shower, right?”

“I have no such interest in you beyond a purely professional standpoint.”

“Okay, so we’ve established you don’t want to be here and I don’t you here either so let’s just cut to the chase so we can get out of each other’s hair.”

“Agreed.” A single file was placed on Tony’s bed as if it was an office bin for paperwork. Tony really didn’t know how one could have that much professionalism in them. “This is also your job. You have a clock on this. Try not to mess it up.”

“The faith you people have in me is overwhelming.” Tony rolled his eyes, already levitating the files and paperwork to read over it, and block Coulson from his view, who disappeared without a sound. Tony read and it was brief, and not much to go on.

What caught his eyes however was…. “Wait, they wanted me to prevent something from happening before it happens?”

That hardly seemed fair. It seemed like they were setting him up for failure.

Not that Tony hadn’t already guessed that, but this just made that more obvious.

~

To say that he was in a bad mood was an understatement. Tony fell snappish and felt his magic curling protectively around him and ready to lash out at a moment’s notice. He had to break into his stash of magical suppression jewelry like children and teens were given to make sure nothing happened.

Exposure was deadly, and clearly SHIELD was gunning for him, this second trouble seemed anything but, just a prolonged state of suffering vying over his head baiting him with freedom, illusion of hope only for it to have never existed in the first place.

Did it ever matter what he did? Would even be able to do a single thing right and even if he did, would all be for naught?

A tendril of magic escaped and instead of shattering the windows of a nearby store in his anger, all it did was shake them as if there was a car speeding by too close or music being played too loud from within. Nothing magical, nothing that would be traced back to him.

His case was to find another witch, someone else who was having a difficult time with their magic, and clearly SHIELD seemed worried that she was about to cause an incident. Her magic from the reports seemed more deadly than Tony’s had been at that age, seemed to stray towards chaotic, and stray towards harming people.

There were certain types of magic that responded with people more but to say that was all they were capable of was wrong. Tony could relate to the anger and despair she must be feeling to keep lashing out like this, but her age, and the fact she was seemingly a witch born in this world thus didn’t seem to have the proper training meant leniency.

Magic manifested early, but Tony had heard sometimes it could laid dormant until someone’s teens. Rarely was that a natural cause rather than the response of someone actively suppressing someone’s magical growth.

If that was the case, then it probably meant a parent or older figure had known of her heritage and was taking steps to avoid it apparently either afraid or unequipped to handle it. Perhaps a mortal parent was in the picture?

Split between two worlds could lead to some oddities but as far as Tony knew, it was always a witch. The blood was dominant and appeared even in very little doses such as 1/16th.

He didn’t know if he was really the best person for this job, he didn’t really have any experience with therapy other than dodging the suggestion that they was maybe something that he should look into because clearly he was a train wreck.

Not that Tony needed that reminder.

He knew, he knew, he didn’t need to be told.

Anger boiled over again, his insides feeling hot with his suppressed magic turning internal more than normal and giving him a fever. Not that he didn’t already run hot naturally. He always had, seemingly always would do so. It was comforting the heat compared to the cold.

The cold meant curses, the cold meant death, the cold meant…

He didn’t want to think about that.

All he can do is visit the incidents sites and remove the magic reducing jewelry temporarily to have full access to his powers and then try to pinpoint where the girl is.

The first area is a coffee shop, Tony abates some of his anger with a pumpkin spiced latte and lounges around the area because he has to try and get trace from the girl. Coffee shops are rather transient too, but since he knows he’s looking for a witch, it narrows it down to a magical signature, and knowing what type of magic she’s used so far, or what is supposedly used so far gives him a lead.

Chaos magic is notoriously tricky, although one could argue magic in itself is inherently chaotic with some practices just less or more prone to it. He would know as he has chaotic leanings himself, so maybe he can see why SHIELD may have assigned it to him.

The incident in question was a coffee machine exploding, which seems to be a waste all things considered, but then sometimes magic just did that. Better to explode a coffee machine than to explode someone’s head.

He’s too deep into the magic, that Tony drowns everything out until he hears his name called.

It takes him out of it, blinking aware and trying to understand why someone may have called his name, he’s then greeted to a very concerned Steve.

“Are you okay? You were spacing out.”

Tony sighed, and wasn’t surprised when Steve took the seat in front of him. The rings he’d been using for magical suppression lay on the table, they were clearly ornate, nothing could be mistaken for a wedding ring, not that was important, god his mind, needed to stop.

“Just… thinking.” Tony said, not sure what else to.

“About what might happen if they say no?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Tony nodded, using what he had in front of him to further spin this lie. “Wouldn’t have much of a choice in what to wear, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, you know? It sounds so trivial but then it’s different when it’s taken away from you, and you don’t have that choice anymore.”

“Would a character witness help?”

“A character witness?” Tony blinked.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve spent a couple of hours with you each day now. I’d think that would be enough, particularly if we spend more time together. It might help.”

Tony didn’t think it would help given he wasn’t a part of this world, but on the other hand, he didn’t know what to say about that. “Steve, that’s… you, you don’t know me. Or what I did.”

“I don’t think it matters. We all make mistakes, you’re not acting like you want to hurt someone or that you’re a bad person.”

“How can you tell, though?” Tony asked honestly. “How would you know? For all you know, I could be a con artist, all this apparent good will and image you see could just be a nice shiny veneer for something ugly inside.”

Tony went to grab his rings and leave because he felt the ticking thread of magic on his skin, a sign something was bound to happen but Steve grabbed his wrist before he could take off.

He’d known before that Steve had a firm grip, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that meant Steve’s hand around his grip would be firm as well. However Tony felt like this much strength was excessive, did artists work out this much? He felt like couldn’t even move his wrist as if there was an iron band around it, keeping him in place.

“You’re not ugly. Nothing about you is ugly.”

With their raised posture hovering over the small table, it drew attention. Tony rolled his eyes, daring someone to say something, and the attention fell off of them.

“Maybe we should talk elsewhere.”

“I’m not opposed but you’d have to actually move your hand from my wrist.” Tony reminded.

Steve blinked once, twice and then look flushed with embarrassment. It was a good look on him Tony noted as Steve bashfully took back his hand as Tony puts his rings into his pockets, not wanting to waste any extra time putting them on and his coffee. “Let’s go then.”

Not that Tony knew where they were going, but anywhere seemed better than a crowded place like Starbucks, people had probably thought they were some arguing couple when that was very far from the truth.

Here he was a witch playing at human deceiving a really nice person who apparently saw something in him but then Steve just made it easier to breathe around him.

Maybe he was just one of those people who had a naturally comforting presence?

“Did you get to order your coffee?” Tony asked, thinking now he didn’t see Steve with a coffee but that didn’t mean he hadn’t ordered one.

“Ah, no, I saw you, and well, you seemed out of it, and you were more important, so.”

Tony pushed the pumpkin spice latte into Steve’s hands, who recoiled a bit at the touch of his fingers brushing against him in the past off, admittedly it impacted Tony too, because it was intimate to touch someone else’s hands but eventually Steve held it securely, looking at him uncertainly. “I’m not sick so you can drink after me.”

“This seems like it has a lot of sugar in it.” Steve sniffed the air above the latte, rather than coffee cup itself, perhaps Steve just had really good sense of smell?

“Sugar is what makes it good. I mean, not that I don’t appreciate black coffee, but come on, tis the season.”

“Isn’t that Christmas?”

“It’s way too early for you to even mention that to me.” Tony didn’t hide his offended tone, too many times now had it been September or October and then Christmas music insulted his ears.

In one horrifying occasion, it had crop up as early as an August and Tony had fried the music player in retribution. It had been the one time there had been an exposure that SHIELD hadn’t come after him because of.

Steve chuckled and drank from the latte. “At least you drank some for me so not as much sugar.”

“Please tell me you’re not one of those health freaks because I may have to reconsider our friendship.”

“I… like being healthy, but I’m not going to say no to indulging. How many times can you eat the same thing over and over again without its taste going stale in your mouth?” Steve said, seemingly speaking from experience.

He had that sad tone in his voice again, so Tony resolved to do something to change that and fast. “Good point. So what do you like to eat? Because I could really go for a burger right now.”

“I like burgers.”

Like that, without really even talking about it more things seemed to fall into place, and just be better.

It was only later on that day, which Tony realized he hadn’t put back on his magic suppression jewelry on, yet hadn’t even once had a problem with lashing out.

He chalked that up to just having a good time with Steve.

~

He does revisit that Starbucks and gets seen by a barista who was apparently there the previous day and took notice of it as well. “Patch things up with your boyfriend?”

Tony startled, having not expected that and just agrees without thinking hearing the barista chuckle behind him as he exited the coffee shop quickly, forgetting entirely that he needed to stay there and gather more information.

~

It takes a week for Tony to return to that specific shop, having gotten his pumpkin spice fix elsewhere while he checked the other scenes and spend more time with Steve which mainly seemed to capitalizing on Steve’s lunch time. As if he doesn’t still come and hang out at mural watching how each day Steve adds a little more and more in as the picture becomes clearer.

People fill in the crowd, their features becoming more obvious with a careful hand as Steve using small and finer brushes for details and bigger brushes to paint long swatches. Apple bobbing and hay rides have appeared thus far, and Steve had started on a section of little kids in costumes next.

Apparently, the library has been a hotbeds for witches recently so the girl made a copy machine explode.

Tony is seeing a theme here, and the owl watches him creepily from the top of one the bookshelves, clearly remembering that he once brought in food to the library and is waiting to see if he’ll do it again. Those talons look sharp and he puts up his hands defensively to show that there’s nothing and the owls scurries off.

He still has yet to find out which library member is the owl, or perhaps they’re a patron that just takes library etiquette really, really serious.

Regardless, he senses mounting frustration but also loss at the cause of the printer’s premature death and a small, barely three glee of seeing someone covered in ink.

Tony can understand that, there’s a certain amount of mischievous spirit that seems to dwell in witches with chaotic leanings. But then he also worries about the loss, there are very, very few things as dangerous as grief in a witch.

The other scene is much more obscure, a strange place for a teenager to be, at least a teenager who has some semblance of a stable life going on. It’s an underpass underneath one of the highways and Tony doesn’t need to be told that a lot of not so great things happen around in these parts.

The lashing out this time seemed to have been scared pissed rather than frustrated pissed probably meaning something had spook the girl into have a reaction.

Like a defensive one, the magic curling around her to have protected her from harm but nothing happening or nothing happening because of it. A dumpster moving on its own wasn’t exactly unheard of in New York, there was a lot of trash around after all.

A dumpster catching on fire, though?

That was a little more unusual in the middle of the night with no known cause.

~

Heading back to coffee shop and avoiding a certain purple loving barista revealed the most damning clue, a sort of location of where she might be or where she was that she had been some time at, at least.

Tony left and headed towards the apartment complex. Though it said condemned, it still look in one piece enough for someone to squat at least, and the flicker of magic within told him that his suspicions were right which came the hard part. How exactly did he convince her he wasn’t a threat and not have some type of incident on his hands either?

Tony about Steve for a moment, his naturally comforting presence but then shook the thought away. That would just be needlessly dangerous. He could figure out a way himself. 

Might as well be blunt, he walked around the property, out of sight of any prying eyes and created a flickering figure of an electric blue cat, and imbued it with a message and watched from a distance. He might as well be classic since cats and witches were closely associated. That wasn’t as strong of an association in Halloweentown as the mortal world, however. He waited to see if there a sight in the area, something that he needed to suppress until suddenly at his side, there she was.

“What do you want?” she asked, clearly not happy.

“You’re drawing attention, kid. Not exactly great, can get you into a whole world of legal troubles.” Tony had to hold his tongue from saying anymore. No sense in scaring her. “Not that you’re in trouble, I’m just here so it doesn’t advance to a point where you accidentally hurt someone or you get seen and then suddenly people are accusing you of being a witch and wanting to burn you.”

“The Salem witch trials weren’t really like that…” She pointed out, an unimpressed look rather than an unhappy one seemed like an improvement.

It was just one eye roll shy of a teen sighing at an adult.

“You see, you’re very smart. So you should know there’s rules about this sort of thing.”

“I don’t care about that.” She gritted her teeth, and suddenly there were auras of red magic surrounding her hands and Tony understood why her file had been listed as scarlet witch. “I just want to know where he is.”

Tony blinked. “Who’s he?”

“My twin.” She said as if he should have known this. “Either leave me alone or help me, but I’m not stopping until I know where he is.”

“Oh.” That changed things. “Actually, I could make a call. This might be above my paygrade. If that’s okay with you? Or you can leave, and I can just hypothetically ask what might happen and not mention I found you?”

She considered his offer with weighted silence, but the red finally faded seemingly signaling her agreement. “I’ll make myself scarce.”

Not exchanging names ended up being for the best.

~

Voluntarily reaching out to SHIELD had seemed like the last thing Tony had wanted to do, there’s bitter feelings there but admittedly, his feelings aren’t really more important that someone who might be in real and active danger.

Tony feels like regardless of the circumstances, they have to take him seriously.

So puts in a call to Coulson, thankfully sometimes nonmagical solutions are for the best so he phrased it as nondescriptly as he can. “Hey, uh, just wondering what happens if I think a witch might be in danger? Like not from exposure but more hey, someone is out to get me. You know I don’t have much in way of friends here, so you know that this is about me so get back to me soon.”

Being self-centered for once comes in handy as it probably won’t be concerned anything else. He doesn’t know what to do if SHIELD doesn’t take it seriously so he doesn’t dwell on it, when he gets up to meet up Scott.

Scott who seems panicked. “Everything okay? You didn’t accidentally swallow a card again, did you?”

“Well, no, okay, yeah, but that’s not what this is about. Something came up and need someone to watch my kid and well, you don’t seem like a bad person, so can you do it?”

Like Steve, Tony had only known Scott for a short amount of time but the stage magic sessions added up and they had watch a movie or went to eat dinner once or twice. Not that it felt anything similar to what he felt when he was around Steve, Scott was nice to be around.

Still, Tony wasn’t quite sure that meant he was qualitied to do something so much as look after Scott’s kid. “You’re trusting me with your kid?”

“She’s a kid, not a baby.” Scott pointed out as if Tony needed the reminder with how many time he had seen Cassie pictures both on a physical and digital mean. Scott was always ready to gush about his daughter. “She’s very smart and doesn’t really need you to do much just make sure that she’s okay. She has a school project so all you need to do is go to the library with her and anywhere else she might need to go if she gets hungry, or if she needs anymore school supplies.”

“Right, I can do that.”

“Perfect. Just remember if you do anything, I am willingly to go to jail for my daughter!” 

~

“Dad says you’re his magician buddy.” Cassie pointed out when he located her at the library, according to Scott, her mom had dropped her off in the library with the understanding that Scott would be there to overlook her progress hence why Tony was now here. “Also this picture Dad sent me of you makes you look old.” 

“That I am.” Tony said, choosing to ignore the old comment because well, he wasn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore but he didn’t exactly like the reminder either. Not that he could shapeshifting into a younger version of himself, but long term that would be a lot of magic that he could use elsewhere. Besides, his twenties in the mortal meaning at least had been very far from a happy time for him.

He felt more settled at his current age now compared to them, even if he would probably never quite settle into stability enough, always unmoored and listless.

“He’s really good at magic. I like it when he makes the cards appear from this mouth because it’s gross.” Cassie giggled happily.

“And because he swallows them sometimes?”

“That, too. It’s funny.”

“You really love your dad, huh?”

“Doesn’t everyone love their dad?” Cassie asked, earnestly and Tony bit his tongue, he didn’t want to say anything or shatter that illusion. “Some people say Dad is bad, but I know he is a good, and then I also have my mom’s boyfriend to look after me.”

“Do you like him too?”

“He tries and makes me feel safe but he’s not very good at picking out presents for me.” Cassie made a face clearly reminded a present that had displeased her, Tony laughed and she threw a balled up piece of paper at him.

“Ah, is your dad good at it, then?” Tony said, dodging it and making a note to clean that up later. Or else he was pretty sure that owl was going to peck his hands.

“He’s the best. I don’t have it with me but I have this super ugly toy at home that he got me and I just love it so much.”

“That’s nice. So what are you studying?”

Tony leaned back into the actual reason they were here in the library since some work needed to get done but knew if Cassie was anything like him as a child staying quiet for too long wouldn’t happen thus had talked to her but also wanted to assure her that he wasn’t a bad person or anything.

Kids were something else.

Clearly, Cassie was very, very loved despite being a child of divorced parents which was wonderful. That always made things harder even if sometimes divorce was clearly the best answer.

Staying together could far often be the worse option for everyone involved.

True to Scott’s word, Cassie didn’t need him for much, just asked his opinions on things or asked him to get books for her project. She did seem smart though with her somewhat eclectic interests, Tony worried about how she might be doing in school, but then knowing Scott, he had probably already thought of that.

He did seem to be genuinely a good father which was blowing Tony’s mind a bit not because he didn’t think Scott had it in him, but just because there were so few examples of that in his life that it was hard not to be surprised when seeing it in person.

“I want ice cream.”

“Are you allowed to have ice cream?” Scott didn’t mention anything about it.

Cassie countered. “Are you going to tell my dad about it?”

“Touché. I guess a little bit wouldn’t hurt you.”

Sugar impacted kids more right? So he needed to be wary of the exact size but surely there was kid size somewhere that he could give her. 

Finding an ice cream shop was not the problem, the problem happened after the fact when Cassie seemed to get increasingly more hyper with each bite of ice cream. He was probably never going to be asked to babysit again, but she was in one piece so likely that was more important.

He had gotten a similar size for himself, not wanting to spark any jealousy in her because as an adult he could have more without incident particularly when he had a pumpkin spices lattes as often as he did and the amount of sugar in those far exceeded this.

Ah, coffee, they didn’t have a coffee flavor here so Tony had to go for something a bit more basic but the quality was good so he wasn’t’ going to complain.

“Tony?”

Tony turned at his name being called and saw Steve. That was… odd, Steve didn’t have much of a sweet tooth as Tony had learnt through eating out with him, and they were rather far from his mural.

What was odder still was Cassie’s reaction. “Uncle Steve!”

She ran towards him, ice cream abandoned and hugged him.

Odd, but also exceedingly adorable. He’d already known Steve looked good with kids, like he was meant for it, but a scene like this just ran that point home all the more.

“Cassie, hi.” Steve smiled. “I didn’t know you knew Tony.”

“He’s Dad’s magician buddy!” She exclaimed happily.

“Is he now?” Steve had a strange look on his face for a moment, but then well, Tony imagined Steve just might not have thought much of magicians but then that didn’t make sense when he clearly seemed on good terms with Scott.

It probably had to do with the fact he was judging Tony for taking up something rather nonessential in his eyes, with the final judgement still hanging over his head.

It’s not like Steve knew those things were connected.

“Yeah…” Tony shrugged, he was probably just overthinking it too much. “So you know Cassie, too?”

“He knows my Dad! Meet him after Dad went away for a few years…”

Suddenly, Steve’s ability seeing the good in him made sense, he hadn’t really picked up on Scott being an ex-con but it did explain away a few things he had noticed that were odd before such as why Scott critiqued heist movies so much.

“Yes, it’s been nice seeing you grow up, Cassie. You’re getting taller.”

“Duh! That’s what kids do.”

“Also still conning adults into getting you ice cream, it seems.”

“He was an easy mark. I almost felt bad about it. Almost.”

“Well, I wanted ice cream anyways.” Tony chuckled, not annoyed in the least that revelation rather than amused. “What about you, Steve, do you want any?”

“Well, how can I refuse an offer like that?” 

~

Later after Cassie has been returned to who her dad who seems thrilled, really so completely thrilled at Steve’s presence that Tony can’t help but wonder if Scott has a crush on Steve, he and Steve are waking down the streets with hot apple cider as the night begins to set in.

“So what do you think?”

“Apple cider is not bad. I can see why you like it more not nearly as sugary.” Tony would have to make a note to drink this more, he wondered if it would always remind him of Steve.

“Versatile too. Tastes good cold or hot but that’s not actually what I meant.”

“Oh?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “What did you mean, then? About Cassie? It should be obvious I adore her - smart, mischievous, has a good heart. That’s a package deal right there.”

“Reminds me of someone else I know.” Steve said more into his drink than to Tony, but honestly, Tony did the same when presented with coffee.

“You would know all the kids.”

“Is that something you want?” Steve asked instead. “Kids?”

“I don’t know.” Tony admitted, he hadn’t exactly thought it too hard over the years mainly his life was just enough trouble without even thinking to involve anyone else in the picture let alone an innocent child who could just get swept away in the drama. “I mean, I like kids, but then I think about what happens if you fuck them up, if you have the audacity to bring something into existed, only to destroy their self-worth, or wonder if they’re even loved, or that they won’t look back cen- decades back and be like, wow that thing as a kid really fucked me up.”

“I think, to some degree, we harm everyone we’re around, but just because we do, it’s not a good enough reason to just decide to never get close to anyone ever.” Steve said, considering his words carefully it seemed. “That’s a really lonely life and people need each other.”

“It’s different if it’s a kid. Besides, there’s not only that, there’s what if something happens to them, how to love something more than yourself, more than anything, and then know that could get harmed or that could die? How do you deal with that?”

“Loss is also a part of life, I think, the quality of life is more important than quantity.”

“I guess so.” Tony wasn’t sure, he kept thinking back to Wanda and her missing brother, wondering when Coulson was going to get in touch with him, or if he’d been left to do this on his own. “What about you? Do you want them?”

“Well…” Steve flushed, apparently nervous that Tony had thrown the question back at him. “Maybe? I’m not sure. My situation is somewhat complicated.”

Tony raised an eyebrow, complicated how?

Steve continued, “I mean, there’s always adoption, and I feel like there are a lot of kids in this world who need someone and I’m not really sure if I could foster and then be expected to give the kid back, you know? I know that’s also important, and I really respect everyone who does it, but I just don’t know what I can.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.” Tony nodded, he wouldn’t be sure if he could do the same. “So by adoption, you mean like a newborn or any age?”

“It wouldn’t really matter to me.” Steve shrugged, apparently having thought about this before. “I mean, each stage a child is in means something different for development. Babies are a lot of work, but that doesn’t suddenly mean that a five year isn’t or that a teenager wouldn’t be. Just different set of circumstances.”

“That makes sense. I mean, you have time, don’t you?” Steve was an artist, and he did some free classes for at-risk youth at community centers and things of that nature, but if he had all this time to spend with Tony, he clearly had the time to date. “Something tells me if you liked someone, they wouldn’t say no.”

Tony certainly wouldn’t but this wasn’t about him.

“You say that but you have no idea about my dating history.” Steve rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tic.

“Oh, come on, big guy. It can’t be that bad. You haven’t heard my story of seven evil exes.”

“Seven?” Steve looked alarmed.

“I cannot be trusted with romantic relationships, it appears. So really your dating history has nothing on me.”

“Right, I haven’t even dated seven people.” Steve said sheepishly. “You wouldn’t think badly of me if I only dated one person before would you?”

“Of course not. You seem like the type. Falling in love hard, and then just really have a hard time moving on.”

“Wasn’t my choice to move on. That…” Steve sounded choked up, something between a whine and a sob that just about broke Tony’s heart.

“Oh, Steve.” Tony wrapped his arms around Steve, somewhat difficult with the drinks, but he managed nonetheless. Steve leaned into the contact, pulling him close and apparently just taking a lot of solace in the hug by how close he held him and how his head was buried in the crook of Tony’s neck.

“There, there.” Tony didn’t know what else to say. Those were the comfort words, right?

It felt like they hugged for a long time, but surprisingly it seemed like no one else was around which was an oddity for New York but perhaps they slipped into a liminal space where time got distorted and stretched long making seconds feel like minutes.

Areas of transient were very common for it.

Or maybe his magic flared and trapped them in an unseen bubble that couldn’t be touched, heard or seen by anyone that Tony didn’t want to.

Steve let go of him eventually, if somewhat reluctantly with an apology.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve noticed you’re a bit cuddly, not like I mind.”

“You do run surprisingly hot.”

“Some people are just like that, right?” Tony said casually, feeling bad he was still lying.

Maybe things would be easier if he had been born a human, or maybe the inevitable loss of his magic wouldn’t be too bad if he got to spent it with Steve. If he didn’t have his magic, then he would more or less be human, just human who had lived centuries before and knew a lot of things.

Would he lose that though if he lost his magic? Would his mind not be able to keep in all the things he had learnt because human minds weren’t built for that sort of thing?

Tony felt the beginnings of an anxiety attack swirling in his chest, that grow heavy and laden once more as the curse continued to remind him of its presence, he willed himself to calm down that he needed to calm down, but that was just very hard to do. It was one thing to say calm down, and another thing altogether to do actually do it. His magic would spiral out of control and hurt Steve, that was a sobering thought that kept him from at least externally panicking.

“It’s getting late…” Tony said, slowly, more slowly than he normally spoke to keep the appearance of calm because he needed to get away and quickly.

Steve however didn’t buy it. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“It is.” Steve stepped back. “Did I do something wrong?”

Any other time, Tony would have made a comment about Steve apparently being the first to blame himself, it was something they had in common and Tony didn’t know why they had that in common, but right now it was very far from his mind.

“No!” Tony raised his voice, which seemed to have startled Steve. “It’s not that, not you. It’s not your fault. It’s just me, it’s always me….”

Tony bit his lip to keep from saying anything else, tasting blood but not really caring for the minute injury in the scheme of things. How did things spiral out of control that quickly? How did something as simple as a singular thought threaten to bring him to his knees as the world seemed to spin around him?

What was wrong with him?

Why couldn’t he just be more normal?

Through the rush of blood in his ears, Tony faintly heard something hitting the ground, not him, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was, only that it repeated again, and then suddenly there was Steve. Steve held him closely and muttered reassuring phrases, or at least they felt reassuring, everything still sounded muted right now so he couldn’t quite make it out.

His magic settled from what felt like sparks on his skin to just the normal amount of warmth inside but Steve was warm too. He hadn’t noticed it much earlier, his thoughts too preoccupied with what had happened to Steve, what was in his past, because as he had thought about it then, he didn’t know much about Steve’s past.

As if his history just started up a few years back.

Maybe Steve was an ex con too.

Eventually, Tony came back into his body with awareness returning to him, and felt Steve brush a hand against his face, cupping his jaw. “Are you better now?”

“Yes, better.” Tony said softly, somewhat taken back at how close they were and how easy it would be to kiss Steve at this moment.

“Why don’t you come to my place? It’s nearby. I don’t want to leave you alone right now.”

“Okay.” Tony replied without thinking about it, he probably shouldn’t agree, there were other things he needed to do, he didn’t need to be around anyone else if he was waiting on Coulson who was usually always prompt.

He didn’t really want to say no Steve right now anyways.

~

“You call me with an important question and you don’t even have the decency to be at home the following night.”

Coulson sound more unimpressed than usual, Tony couldn’t really bring himself to care after he had stayed the night at Steve’s place and woke up to breakfast. Steve couldn’t exactly cook that well, it seemed, but Tony had devoured it because the thought behind it made it taste better to him.

“Well, I thought I’d just give you a taste of your medicine.”

“What are you playing at Stark? It’s been over three weeks, and both of your cases are still active.”

“Again, we’ve established you don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you to be here, so let’s hurry it along.” Tony snapped his fingers annoyingly in hopes it would encourage Coulson to do so.

“SHIELD protocol if a witch is in danger is to send out a special group that’s equipped to deal with recovery operations. It’s a different section than exposure, but on occasion they overlap.”

“So if someone was missing, recovery operations would handle it?” Tony asked, wanting to know specifically if he was correct to assume so or not.

“More or less, yes.” Coulson narrowed his eyes. “Why? Who’s missing? It’s clearly not you.”

“The scarlet witch, she’s only having incidents because her brother is missing. Seemingly someone was holding back their power because it’s very unlikely siblings wouldn’t both have magical abilities.”

“I see. This is indeed above your paygrade.”

“I’m not getting paid.” One of the worst part of his debacle was it was unpaid internship of likes, not that it was completely fair to compared it to that, Tony would regardless.

“You’re paying SHIELD back for all the grief you caused us. Even though it would likely take several years for to work off that burden entirely, I’m not letting Fury subject SHIELD to you for that long.”

“Really feeling the love here, Coulson.” Tony rolled his eyes before noticing something odd. A certain signature that felt familiar. “Why do you seem to have this snarky purple loving Barista energy on you?”

“Why were you spending the night in someone else’s house?”

“…fair enough.”

~

Tony goes to see the girl later on, finding her still holed up in the same spot. Only this time he was allowed inside, instead of an outside meeting.

“So apparently it looks like SHIELD had a certain wing for these operations, you should be seeing a guy soon, he looks like a fed, sometimes has an umbrella even though he has no corp goth vibes that would actually make that make sense. Not like you, your sense of fashion is nice.”

“…thank you?” She said uncertainly. “So they’ll find him?”

“They should, they have a lot more experience than me in this regard. I’m just only here as a punishment and you and your brother deserve more than that.”

“You have been kind, Tony.”

“Ah, I thought I felt the presence of someone poking around in my mind.” The amazing thing was, he hadn’t been able to deflect that, and it could have been because he wasn’t on guard but Tony felt it was more likely that she was just that skilled. “It’s rude, by the way. I don’t mind so much because I don’t think you really want to hurt me, and all you’ll find of my surface thoughts is a love of pumpkin spice lattes.”

“It happens sometimes. I’m Wanda, by the way.” She admitted. “Though that explains why those lattes kept appearing around the area.”

“I wasn’t sure if you were getting fed enough since I didn’t want you to actually leave and have to go buy things with money though I did leave some of that among other things. Can’t quite get delivery to a condemned house.”

“Well, in a way, I did” She smiled softly.

It was the first time he’d seen that expression on her face. “I think it’ll be okay, kid. It might not feel like it right now, and it may not get better immediately, but I think you and your brother will be united and things will go back to normal. Maybe not the same, but normal.”

“Normal sounds very far from what I am.”

“You’re just a witch, same as me.” Tony explained though, he was sure that Wanda already knew they had that in common. Sometimes you had to say something out loud for it to be believed. “Nothing strange about that, you should see our world eventually, it’s called Halloweentown because I mean, look at all its inhabitants, we got witches, vampires, werewolves, skeletons, familiars and all sort of things. It’s always fall too and if you don’t like that, you can always come back to the mundane world to experience seasons.”

“A whole another world? Connected to this one?”

“Where did you think all those stories from creatures came from? They were once joined, but now it’s not so. So we gotta keep a low profile.”

“So that’s why exposure is bad.” Wanda surmised. “They think we’re not real because that what we want them to think?”

“Yeah but some humans know, wouldn’t be able to hid it all by having supernatural beings just embedded in every level of society.”

SHIELD had certainly tried come to think of it, the barista at the coffee shop, might very well be one of theirs if he had a connection to Coulson. It was unlikely that a strictly personal connection, right?

“So why now?” Wanda seemed confused and Tony couldn’t blame her for that.

“Someone seemed to have been hiding your heritage from you. It happens, I think you had a mortal parent, not sure which one, but it doesn’t really matter. You’re a witch, and I’m imagining your brother is too.”

“So the same abilities?”

Tony felt like a teacher having to explain the basics, but he had never really been put in a position like this before, he found didn’t actually dislike it. “The same pool of abilities, but your strengths and weaknesses will likely be different. You have chaotic leanings, not sure if he does or doesn’t. Chaos is a form of creation is how I look at it, not bad but sometimes it’s bad when you can’t control it, or you just want to burn everything.”

“So the control gets better?” Wanda sound hopeful, but at the same time, Tony couldn’t lie to her about the reality of this.

“I mean, I’m not exactly a shining example of control, but… it gets better.”

“That’s enough for me, right now.”

~

The mural was taking shape and looking closer to completion each time he saw it, it made Tony less chatty in a way, just entranced by watching Steve work and seeing where the new details were emerge next.

Steve finished the kids in costume having made a witch boy to turn head on tradition, an angel androgynous child likely meant to be trans so those kids were left out either, and then a girl dressed as a typical male hero.

So he had turned to drawing new scenes, having drawn a table with people drinking away at apple cider as someone looked on. Someone with dark hair, and what appeared to be coffee in their hands. “Is that a latte?”

“It is seasonal.” Steve said quickly, too quickly.

“So the dark hair is just coincidence?” Tony smirked, enjoying this far too much. He wondered if Steve had just used him a place holder, or if it had been something intentional.

It would be nice to know if he had been in Steve’s thoughts as much as Steve had been in his.

“If you want it to be, or I could commit your memory to art for a while.” Steve offered, apparently something with no strings attached.

Tony wasn’t used to those kind of offers.

“Not exactly my community.”

“You’re here, so it is.”

Tony blushed and looked away, feeling glad for once that Steve’s eyes were on the mural instead of him for once. They hadn’t much talked about the other night, not that anything had happened. 

Aside from sleep, and even sleep had been done in different rooms much to Tony’s disappointment. He would have been down to just sleeping with Steve, usually he rushed in more for the sex part since he liked sex and sex was fun.

But with Steve he didn’t really want to run anything with sex, just being close to him was enough and sleeping with him would probably be amazing too.

Steve was so warm and big…

Okay, Tony was getting off point, couldn’t be thinking of that and then have a non-corporal hand smack Steve’s ass in jest or out of lust.

~

Both cases seem to wrap up around the same time with Scott finally seeming to accept all the way without hesitation that Tony is just a really convincing stage magician and nothing else is going on, and then Wanda gets reunited with her brother, her twin Pietro, and things are good.

It does however shine some light on why Pietro may have been targeted, twins meant a lot of things in a lot of different cultures and witches weren’t an exception. Meaning that Wanda had likely been in a large part of danger herself but her magic more volatile than seemingly her twin had made them target Pietro.

Who’s magic seem not quite as outwardly dangerous in terms of likely to cause explosions at least, so far.

Things were good, things were good, so why didn’t Tony feel at ease?

~

The next case he’s sent isn’t even a witch, rather a spider.

An adorable young spider apparently in some trouble with someone having noticed something extra, so in this case, his problem isn’t so much the kid, but rather tracking down who had seen the kid shift into his more arachnid features.

Not that Tony wouldn’t check on the kid, but his family had at least declared their status so they weren’t hiding amongst in the mundane world without any protection. It seemed like his mortal aunt and uncle were raising him rather than his parents that had already passed on. Mortals did take care of the supernatural relatives sometimes, but other times it didn’t end so nicely so Tony was glad that the kid wasn’t abandoned by the reveal of his supernatural heritage.

With any degree of shifting, having mortal blood could dilute that and make full shift impossible, or just halved some of the abilities present, not that it really mattered. Wasn’t promised in the long run, a half shifter could more powerful than a full blooded one, it really just depended.

The problem was the area of exposure.

An amusement park in itself had a lot of people, so Tony had understandably not visited during normal hours because he wasn’t going to deal with that. Way too many people and he would likely never get a read or what happened.

Of course, then that meant visiting an amusement park at night.

Admittedly, somewhat spooky even speaking as a witch.

Or well, at least the area when it was a problem would be because the incident had happened in the hall of mirrors. Tony had always hated that particular attraction even since he learnt of amusement parks. He didn’t like looking at his image distorted and sent back to him again and again.

It just made him feel bad, but he couldn’t do anything about that now.

Had to get this done. Tony worried vaguely as he navigated the amusement at the witching hour, how many more times he would have to do that. Coulson had a point, SHIELD as a whole would eventually deign his appointment as punishment to them and oust him eventually, it was nearly a month of this and he hadn’t slipped up yet, but it also meant Steve’s mural was coming to end.

He didn’t know what came to next, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what came next.

Tony didn’t like being kept in the dark, but it made sense in a way, SHIELD want him to squirm and having done this, he was starting to realize how much of a jackass he had been to just shrug his shoulders and declare it someone else’s problems. An incident or two was likely inevitable and it happened to everyone but he had a long list proving him to be a repeat offender.

He still wasn’t sure, his magic was the proper punishment for that.

Being cursed was sometimes rather harmless such as in a prank, and sometimes deadly.

But was all he had, really just being a witch? Was there nothing more to his identity? Couldn’t he adjust to a life without magic if he had to?

The mundane world wasn’t always nice, and there were some things that Tony didn’t like and without magic would have a lot less problem about addressing, but it had grown on him. Mainly thanks to Steve, he admitted but still.

But then putting all his hopes and dreams on Steve seem unfair.

He did this where he build up what possibilities a relationship could take and what points he could plot out and then when it didn’t happen he felt discouraged and sad. Or worse, when it did happen, it seemed to be the worst possible thing for him because there had been evil exes that had gotten close to him and convinced them they were harmless when they were anything but.

Not that Tony had that fear with Steve.

He just didn’t seem like that type, and after seven bad relationships, Tony felt like he had a better read on people.

Or at least, he hoped that Steve didn’t turn out to be a monster.

Well, no, not that like that. Monster wasn’t exactly a bad word, but mortals tended to use it to mean so.

He really missed Halloweentown.

The idea of not going back there would haunt him as then Tony realize he had been standing in front of the hall of mirrors for the last few minutes too lost in his thoughts to have entered.

It was locked, of course, to prevent people from doing what he was doing right now.

He should look into lock picking without magic because that sound like fun but for now, Tony just with a flick of wrist and a hue of golden magic unlocked the lock and pushed the door opened as he stepped inside.

Like always, this place wasn’t comforting.

This was a place colored by amusement, but the fear was there as well. Fear of young kids not understanding what they were seeing, or people spooking themselves with what they saw in the corner of their eyes.

There wasn’t anything magical here.

It was just science.

Mirrors were like just like that.

Tony took a deep breath and tried to focus, thinking of the small child in his head about what other details had been reported during the incident. There was always some degree of awareness fading from him doing this. It was just how magic worked for him, which is why he remembered his friends telling him it was best to do it with someone else to watch his back.

Tony invited a certain amount of danger into his life, just reckless like that.

However, then there was a current of electric foreign and fast running inside of his body and bringing him crumpling to the ground. Disorientated and dazed as he tried to make sense of what had happened. He didn’t sense another witch, he would have sensed another witch, but the bit of electricity wasn’t magical in nature.

“A grown witch downed that easily?”

“That was way too easy, I’m almost disappointed.”

The words hovered around him, and Tony catch shadows of people but he couldn’t get his eyes to really focus on making out faces, that they were two of them and that they had similar outfits on. The voltage had been high, likely would have killed someone who wasn’t mortal probably suggesting that it wasn’t one meant to be used on people.

Steve had mentioned that he had bought some self-defense supplies for anyone who felt afraid in their community, that he didn’t take payment for them, but cautioned aside Tasers and their ilk as they could quickly turn fatal and offered pepper sprays and noise alarms more.

He did feel pretty pathetic downed by something so simple, but then at least it explained that feeling in the back of his head, that something wasn’t quite right despite how things were looking, that something else was going wrong.

Suddenly, there was a connection between Wanda and Pietro, and even this kid.

Someone was going after creatures, either someone within SHIELD itself who had the same access to their files or just some of the humans that knew of their existence and didn’t take kindly to them and knew how to spot them and hunt them.

Before Tony could really think about it anymore, fire exploded around him, hot and furious and indiscriminate in whatever it reached. Burning flesh met his nose, and the sound of the building stuttered against the amount of physical damage that he had was putting it under creaked precariously.

Glass had a high boiling point but it varied, the metal beams that made up the bulk of the structure of house of mirrors had an even higher boiling point, but the wood? The wood was already weakening and splintering as the flames bounced from area to area unnaturally to cause as much damage as possible in as little amount of time.

Smoke filled the hallways, and the sounds of glasses shattered being his would be assailants trying to take their leave and the halls of mirrors turning their tricks against them and obscuring their easy exit though they were mere feet away from it.

A building collapsing n him wouldn’t kill him, annoy him maybe, but it wouldn’t kill him.

If he didn’t burn up the entire thing and leave nothing but ashes where it once stood that was.

They ran out of the house of mirrors and Tony stood and stared at his reflection for a moment. A sea of reds and oranges engulfed him as if he was a conflagration, a living flame with only one thing in mind to burn everything and everyone down because now he was pissed.

Metal and wood rained down beside him but it never touched him, disintegrating immediately as it near the hues or orange and reds that extended from his body, similar to the coronas that the sun had.

Having chaotic leanings was troublesome sometimes, but sometimes chaos whispered in your ear and told you that losing control was good, that it was deserved, that you would only hurt those you intended to hurt.

Chaos tended to be a liar in Tony’s experience.

But then there was bullets, each melting by the time they reached Tony, the metal melting onto the ground as if it was merely spilled paint and well, then Tony didn’t really have a hesitation in burning anyone alive anymore, he raised his hands as if to shoot off a fireball and felt the magic drain from him in an instance as he dropped a few feet from the ground.

Talk about a letdown, to have all that power coursing through him and in the next gone just like that.

Tony’s eyes widen, remembering the curse, in his anger, he had foolishly forgotten about it.

Did SHIELD not have a clause for self-defense? Those fuckers, his anger felt like it was boiling, but there was no magic there to accompany it giving him a hollow feelings inside.

“Not so dangerous without your magic, are you?” Someone sneered, it sounded like another voice. Had there been more?

Tony was about to think of a snappy retort to that when suddenly there was a howl. A very close by howl and apparently very angry sounding as well. Did New York even have wolves? Tony didn’t actually know if they did or not. 

It didn’t really matter because it drew attention elsewhere and Tony rolled out of their lines of sight, not capable of doing anything much else at the moment more than trying to limit any more harm to himself.

They seemed to think it was something else, likely because the mind was on still set on hunter, so a wolves howl meant werewolf. Which could in theory be the case, but it wasn’t like he’d know any random werewolves who would come to his rescue.

Suddenly something huge and furry entered his line of sight, not a wolf, with how it stood on its hind legs unbothered and clearly steady on them and definitely not a man with how tall they stood or how much golden blond fur they were covered in, but still with strips of clothing jutting out. So a werewolf, and one that that had transformed without having the time to take off their clothes at that.

Tony watched the tail, it was long and not overly fully, on a dog that posture would mean the dog wasn’t happy, so clearly paired with the earlier angry howl, this werewolf wasn’t happy either.

It was odd, he just had the thought and then one suddenly appeared. Tony had no gift for the future, and didn’t have any luck trying to influence the things he wanted to happen, to happen with his magic alone.

He shouldn’t question his fortune really, but all Tony had was confusion at exactly what was going on.

The werewolf bounced with supernatural speed, using their maw with large white teeth again the darkness of the moonless night nearly sparkle as they bite into the shoulder of one his attackers, only to pull them off of the ground with his maw alone and such a deep bite into the body then only release them so their body would fly into one of the other attackers. Blood and flesh ripped through the air, until it finally settle down on the dark asphalt, Tony was just happy none of it had touched him, before the werewolf jumped and went after someone he hadn’t seen coming. Apparently, sated that those two wouldn’t be getting up again.

Tony glanced towards werewolf only to see them use their claws to cut into someone’s flesh leaving nothing but ribbons and a slow death by exsanguination.

In the corner of his eye, Tony saw something appear and watched as a blanket of web wrapped around those two assailants as there were sounds of muffled screams as they were dragged off into the dark. Tony swore he saw a flash of red for a moment, but honestly, he was taking his chances with the werewolf.

The werewolf returned to him, claws and mouth both bloody but actually looked at him this time, to the point that Tony realized something familiar. “Steve?”

Steve’s ears went droopy and he looks sheepish, even in this form. Tony didn’t know werewolves could be that expressive, his experience with them was relatively minimal to date. “Tony.” Steve said, and after the fact he hawked up what looked like a bit of flesh that had gotten stuck in one of his teeth.

Disgust was one way he could react to it, but it wasn’t how Tony reacted.

Steve had saved him, had come to rescue him, and was also apparently a werewolf. He just felt relief at that.

A moment after, Tony felt his magic flowing back into him which caught him off-guard. Wasn’t the curse supposed to be permanent? Unless, it wasn’t a curse that robbed him of his magic, but rather anti-magic technology, he had heard that some humans had created.

Or at least that’s how the story went, Tony admitted he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it, rather wanting to not deal with something that unnerving.

The loss and then return of magic, meant there was no glamour in place, and for once Steve saw him as he truly was, a witch.

Not a human.

As if the smoldering remnants of park wouldn’t have had already told the story or that Steve wouldn’t be able to smell the witch on him.

“Wait, how did you hide your scent?”

He hadn’t realized Steve was a werewolf, but then, he had been touchy, he had seemed to have good sense of smell, and he really seemed big on community and family. So maybe the signs were there after all, and he was just a dumbass.

Nothing new there.

“Sorry about that… I didn’t want to be found, but it wasn’t by you.” Steve looked into the distance, apparently not thinking that the threat was over just yet.

“No, that would be by me.” Fury appeared in an instant and Tony recoiled slightly at his appearance. “Stark, I see you’ve made a mess again. You are a magnet for trouble.”

“Fury.” Steve growled, and put himself in front of Tony. “Tell me you weren’t going to take away his magic.”

“Wait, how do-“

“I only said I would if Stark was seen by a human, and he has not been. Unless tell me Stark does Steve look like a human?”

Tony blinked, was this a trick question? Did he have a concussion? “I mean, there are furries, but-“

“Tony, no.” Steve sounded exasperated.

“I was going to say you’re clearly a werewolf, Steve!” Tony argued.

“Can you two have this lover’s spat elsewhere? I have a whole lot to clean up so Stark expect a fair share of your funds to disappear.”

“What about the curse?” Tony asked. “Are you still going to hold it over my head?”

“Nah, you behaved. You’re not quite done with your punishment yet, though still got to wrap up that spidey case and this looks like Hydra who someone here has a lot of experience with them.” Fury’s eyes were on Steve, and if possible, Steve only shielded him from Fury more. “Clear that up, and then this black mark on your record will disappear.”

The curse lifted in an instant, not nearly as painful or striking as it had been when it caused. Tony felt like he could breathe again for the first time in nearly a month and didn’t have to deal with the weird roadrash that crop up on his neck sometimes and explaining that away.

“If we do this, then that’s it. For the both of us.”

“Sure, sure, you two can go run off and play house and have a whole litter of puppies or whatever it is that you want, after you clear up the hydra cells.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Steve said with a glare and then turned to Tony with a soft look. “Can you make sure we get home unseen?”

“Yeah, sure. My teleportation might be a little rusty.”

“That won’t be how we’re getting back.” In an instant Steve shifted from his werewolf form to that of a large wolf with golden fur, the rest of his clothes falling away from him as he shifted his fur and looked back at Tony waiting.

“Oh.” Tony blinked, and got onto Steve’s back and grabbed onto his fur.

He willed a glamour onto them to move unseen, and Steve ran. Tony felt the wind running through him, in the October air, making him somewhat chilly, but it was only a short run to and from. Steve seemed even faster in this form than his werewolf form.

They ended up back at Steve’s house, who nudged Tony turn to around as he shifted back into his naked human form and the door opened behind him as Tony waited for a beat of a pause to enter.

Coming back here when it had really only been days before, maybe just more than a week he’d been here last felt very different.

It was strange, that they had only known each other for maybe a month and all of this had happened.

He waited on the couch and eventually Steve drifted back in, fully clothed rubbing the back of his neck. “I should probably explain a few things…”

“I know where werewolves come from.” Tony snickered, having to make a joke to break the ice.

“I meant, about how I knew when you were using glamours.”

“That would be helpful.”

“When Cassie meant you were Scott’s magician friend, I was kinda suspicious. It wouldn’t be the first time someone decides to hide in plain sight, because that’s easier…”

Steve clearly hadn’t picked a job that screamed werewolf, nowhere SHIELD hadn’t been able to pinpoint him. Maybe, Tony should have been trying harder to hide his witchyness? But then, he didn’t think he could have actually ran from SHIELD even if he wanted.

“But then when I thought about it more, I had rather good luck around you. Bad things didn’t happen nearly as much compared to people I met you and I just because I couldn’t smell you or your magic at work doesn’t mean I didn’t know what it looks like when it’s being used.”

“I guess I should have let your day get ruined more is what you’re saying?” Tony summed it up for Steve since he seemed like he didn’t want to say it directly.

“No, I appreciated it, but it did seem reckless because with how you start to panic about your punishment and then how you panicked about it, I started thinking what if his magic is the thing he loses? I was in SHIELD, so I know that happens on occasion.”

“So how did you find me?” Tony wondered about that, he hadn’t really lost any blood into much later on in the fight, and it didn’t seem like Steve could move that quickly.

“Your scent turned sour, and then I smelled a large outpouring of magic, and I just knew it was you, so I ran.”

“I’m glad it was you and not another werewolf.”

Steve admitted quietly. “I… might not have responded nicely to that, it’s wrong of me, but I think you’re mine.”

“It’s only wrong if I minded being yours.” Tony pointed out. “It’s not as if I don’t get a say in this, though Fury is kinda being dick about the whole pups thing. We really haven’t known each other that long, and I do like you, Steve but I don’t want to rush anything too fast, is that okay?”

“That’s fine with me.” Steve nodded. “So… what is fast for you?”

“I think we can start off holding hands and kissing? Maybe go on a few dates. All very middle school.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“Then eventually we can work up to you getting to rail me against bed with your knot inside me.”

“Tony!” Steve flushed, but look very far form disinterested.

Tony smirked. “It’s just a small preview of what will happen eventually, I’ll be good and not tease you anymore until we’re more ready for that step. For now, I’ll settle for kissing you and sleeping in the same bed as you tonight, if that’s good?”

“I wanted to bring you into my bed and cover you with my scent the last time you were here, it was hard to resist.”

“I am up for being scenting just don’t forget to kiss me.”

Steve then showered him in kisses, and though they didn’t have any healing properties in them. It did make Tony forgot the aches and pains that had happened tonight. His magic already beginning to net together what was broken into whole again.

He’d ask another time about Steve’s history with Hydra since they would be seeing a lot more of each other from now on.

~

When Steve’s mural is finally finished showcased a rich scene of a multitude people in different skin tones, with different hair and eyes colors, ones that look what was thought of as woman, and man, and those that looked like those who fell in between and nothing at all. He painted from the very young, to the very old, and everyone in the mural looked happy and pleased surrounding the by changing of the leaves and other fall centric activities.

Many people had showed up to the see official unveiling of the project.

Tony had been there before everyone eagerly holding his new boyfriend’s hand.

~

Natasha entered Fury’s office without asking, but then again, if she wanted to, she could manage that, there was a reason why he had selected her to be the next director of SHIELD. “It seems like quite a coincidence that you would have assigned Stark that close to our last known whereabouts of Rogers.”

“Does it now?”

“Are you going to add matchmaker to your list of titles now, sir?” Natasha asked, barely concealing her amusement in the slightest despite her usual level of nonchalance.

“Are you implying something, agent?” Fury looked at her with his one good eye, a stare would break lesser beings into tears without hesitation, Natasha shrugged it off like it was nothing and continued, undeterred.

“I would never just that the big bad witch is a softie.”

“I assume that is a reference to something in the mundane world you are making. Been hanging around Stark too much?” Fury questioning, knowing by Natasha’s report that she had a fondness for the witch somehow.

Here he had thought, she liked Steve more as they had been teammates at a point.

“I would think Stark’s time will be occupied by a certain werewolf more now than me.”

“Please don’t make me think of them together.” Fury groaned, whisking his hand and suddenly a bottle appearing of a well-aged alcohol appeared.

“I will stop, only if you give me a glass.” Natasha offered, fully willing to go about the antics she had seen while she shadowed the both of them at Fury’s behest to make sure Stark didn’t usher in the apocalypse and to make sure that Steve didn’t do anything so reckless that would end his life.

The things she had seen entitled her either a, to a drink or b, to subject that suffering onto someone else.

Fury offered her, a full glass of a deep red liquid and then drank directly from the bottle himself because damn, if he didn’t deserve it. “Idiots, the both of them." 

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna chat, I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thiefoftruth26/).


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